The SCA will hear Jacob Zuma’s parole appeal

DURBAN – Former President Jacob Zuma’s legal team was back in court on Monday.

Zuma’s lawyers will battle their counterparts from the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Helen Suzman Foundation and AfriForum at the Supreme Court of Appeal on Monday.

This is to fight for a December decision by the Pretoria High Court to overturn the former president’s parole decision and return him to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Zuma was released on parole last September after serving just two months of a 15-month prison sentence handed down to him by the Constitutional Court for contempt.

The Medical Parole Advisory Board recommended that Zuma not be released, but then prison warden Arthur Fraser overturned this and the High Court eventually ruled the move unlawful.

The National Corrections Commissioner and Zuma are now appealing the ruling.

Jacob Zuma’s position is that his imprisonment should not affect his rights to adequate treatment and should not be subject to cruel and degrading punishment.

And he argues that Fraser had the right to grant him parole conditions under section 75(7)(a) of the Correctional Services Act, which provides that the commissioner may “commit to correctional supervision or parole or grant – early release to a prisoner who is serving a prison term of less than 12 months.”

Meanwhile, the DA argues that the High Court got it right – the commission is a specialist body made up of doctors and if it recommends no parole, the commissioner cannot oppose it.

The party also said Fraser’s decision was irrational as he said the former president should be near top medical care but released him to the care of his family in Nkandla, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest tertiary care hospital.

The party says the only reason Zuma received special treatment is because of who he is and that Fraser’s decision was “manifestly illegal”.